


A Little Bit Sadder, A Little Bit Freer

by static_abyss



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Depression, Episode: s03e06 Motel California, F/M, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-13
Updated: 2015-08-13
Packaged: 2018-04-14 11:01:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,864
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4562022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/static_abyss/pseuds/static_abyss
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scott learned that nothing good ever came of lingering in the past. </p><p>It was the word "human" that did it. It would have been amusing, if Scott hadn't felt so betrayed, how one word made his entire world collapse. It all crumbled within him, every piece of himself that he'd held together for <em>them</em>. For his mother, and for the pack, for Beacon Hills, for the kids in his classroom who didn't know what was going on. He'd tied all the pieces of himself that had been chipping off with Stiles, had let Stiles fill in the empty spaces of his chest, so that someone could help Scott hold himself up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Little Bit Sadder, A Little Bit Freer

**Author's Note:**

> When is Scott McCall appreciation week?
> 
> TRICK QUESTION. \o/ EVERY WEEK IS SCOTT MCCALL APPRECIATION WEEK \o/
> 
> Anyway, please see the notes at the end for more detailed warnings, as I don't think the tags explain them well enough.

The first time Scott got a sixty-seven on a test, he was sitting in the middle of the classroom, center desk, slightly to the left, and in front to the right of Stiles. He'd been bitten by a werewolf and people were dying in Beacon Hills. But Scott stared at the red mark and the note that read, "this isn't like you."

He'd heard, "you have one job," on a loop in his head, the voice of his father, Rafael, angry and disappointed. But the image that wouldn't leave, no matter how much he concentrated on the blackboard in front of him, was of his mother's face. She wouldn't be smiling when Scott finally showed her his report card at the end of the first term of sophomore year.

There was a werewolf killing people in Beacon Hills. Derek Hale might be a murderer and also a werewolf. Scott didn't need his inhaler anymore, and Allison Argent was interested in him. But there was a red mark on his test for the first time, and all Scott could think of was how there were never any Latino doctors or lawyers on TV. All he heard was his father saying that only half of the Latinos in Scott's school would go to college, and that most wouldn't finish.

The sixty-seven didn't go away, not even when Scott was standing in front of his English teacher's desk.

"What's going on, Scott?" she asked, gentle and concerned.

Scott looked straight at the blackboard behind her head. Stiles had said doing that made it seem like there was eye contact, even if there wasn't. Scott stood there, ears burning, wanting to let her know that he knew it wasn't like him, that he was ashamed for the note and what his mother would see on his report card. But there was a werewolf killing people in Beacon Hills, and _that_ had to be more important.

"I'm fine," Scott said, his eyes on the sloping cursive writing on the blackboard.

"Are you sure?" his teacher asked.

The word "essay" looked like it flowed particularly well, the slanted lines and curves merging into each other. His teacher had nice handwriting.

"I'm sure," Scott said. "I'll do better. It's just this test."

She said nothing for a while, and Scott counted off in his head how long she kept quiet. He got to fifteen different ways that a werewolf could kill somebody before she spoke again.

"I'm here to help you, Scott," she said. "I want you to know that you can come to me for anything. If the class is getting too hard, or you need more time, just talk to me."

Stiles would be waiting in the cafeteria when Scott got out. Allison would probably be there too, Lydia, Jackson, Danny, all the people Scott seemed to be accidentally picking up. The werewolf that bit him was looking for him, and there were at least fifteen different ways a werewolf could murder people.

"I will," Scott said to the blackboard. "I promise."

It wouldn't be the first promise he broke.

-

Scott shakes Stiles's hand when he introduces himself. Both of them are seven and covered in sand. Jackson glares at them from where he's sprawled out in the sandbox, red faced, and shaking.

"Good job," Stiles says.

Scott, barely managing to breathe past the shock of actually winning a fight against Jackson, nods and starts patting himself down for his inhaler. Melissa, his mom, hands it to him every morning before school. Scott sticks it in his pant pockets, his backpack, or the lunchbox he has in the classroom.

"Hey, you okay?" Stiles asks.

He looks worried, this little kid with the shaved head, who had Scott's back when Jackson tried to stuff him in the sandbox. His eyes are wide and frantic, the way Scott remembers his mom's eyes being when his dad left.

"Hey, you going to be okay?" Stiles asks, a little closer now, his hands hovering over Scott, as though he's not sure where to put them.

Scott's mom rubs his chest when he can't breathe, soothing circles as he lays on her lap. Stiles's hands are too small for that, but the way he worries over Scott settles something warm in Scott's chest.

"I'm fine," Scott says, even though his chest is moving too fast. "I promise."

  


* * *

  


Allison Argent walked into Scott's history classroom on a Tuesday, a few days late for the start of Sophomore year. She'd stood at the front of the classroom, trying to hide behind her curtain of dark wavy hair, while the teacher introduced her. She walked with her head down, even as she smiled at the people around her, and she'd clutched the books in her hands tight against her body, as she looked for a seat.

She wore flowery perfume. Scott didn't need to have werewolf senses to know. She was already close enough in the seat directly in front of him. He'd overheard her conversation with her mother, had seen her out the window of the classroom and hadn't been able to stop staring since.

He offered her his last pen, and she smiled so wide Scott felt his heart skip a beat.

"Thank you," she said, her voice soft, shy, as though she didn't fit in this school already. As though anyone would look at her and not welcome her.

"You're welcome," Scott said.

She turned back to the front of the classroom, pushed her books to one side of her desk, and opened her notebook to take her notes. Scott watched the neat, circular shape to her letters, the way she held her pen with her thumb and forefinger and rested it on her middle finger.

He only noticed he was staring because Stiles threw a balled up piece of paper at his head, while their teacher was writing on the board. Scott looked behind him, at Stiles's exasperated expression. He lifted one shoulder in a slow shrug, just to see the way Stiles's eyes went wide and how he mimed choking Scott.

"No pen," Scott mouthed, before turning back to the front of the class.

He expected the blue pen that hit him on the shoulder. He missed when he made a grab for it though, and he watched, half expectant, half mortified, as the pen bounced off Allison's shoulder and rolled to the floor.

She turned to look at him, her eyebrow raised, but not mad.

"Sorry," Scott whispered. Then, he shrugged, gestured behind him, and said. "Stiles," as though that made sense to her.

He could hear the way Stiles slapped a hand over his face, could even hear the soft groan. But, when Allison smiled, the corners of her brown eyes winkled in a pleasant way.

"No problem," she said, reaching down to pick up the pen.

"Here," she said, blushing when she realized that Scott hadn't looked away yet.

"Oh my _god_ ," he heard Stiles whisper from behind him. "I think I'm going to puke."

"Thanks," Scott said, smiling when she let her fingers linger on his.

He kissed her a week later, in the boys' locker room. His heart beat fast, breath ragged, and hands shaking, everything out of control until he heard her call his name in the darkness of the room.

"You make me nervous," he said.

His heart thumped, just a few beats too fast, but his hands didn't shake. His voice sounded shaky and uncool to his ear, little and lost. But Allison smiled at him, and her eyes seemed too bright in the light coming through the locker room windows. She glowed, her skin pale, and hair so dark it was almost black.

Kissing her eased the last of the tension running down Scott's back. Her lip gloss tasted like cherry, and her face was so soft. When she laughed into the space between them, Scott laughed with her, nervous energy leaving, and something rapid and huge filling his chest instead. She kissed him again, and his world expanded like his lungs in his chest. She let go and the world got smaller and smaller, until she was the center.

He exhaled.

-

"Lydia hates me," Stiles, fourteen, says, pacing in Scott's room.

Scott's bed is right beneath his window, directly across from his bedroom door. He has his window open too, so that he can hear when his mom comes home from work. They have books scattered all over the room, in front of where Scott is sitting on his bed, on Scott's desk in the corner, on the floor, where Stiles had been lying down.

Scott's wearing his red hoodie, his inhaler in his pocket, as he watches Stiles pace in the small space in front of Scott's bed.

"Prom is in two weeks," Stiles says, rubbing the top of his head. "And I can't go because Lydia won't go with me. And because she hates me."

He bites at the corner of his fingernails, glances at Scott, and goes back to pacing. Scott leans back against his pillows, and lets his eyes close.

"We could go together," he says.

The silence is welcoming. Scott can pretend that Stiles isn't worried that he's never kissed a girl before.

"We can't go together," Stiles says, but he sounds as though he's considering the idea.

Scott grins, and he can hear Stiles scoff. "Why not?" Scott asks.

"Well…I mean that would solve the me going alone like a loser part," Stiles says, and Scott doesn't need to open his eyes to know that Stiles is rolling his. "I mean I won't be the loser who goes alone. I'll just be the loser who goes with his best friend."

Scott shrugs. "Lots of people go with their best friend."

"Well, yeah," Stiles says.

Scott doesn't hear what Stiles says next, too much of him concentrated on too many things. He still hasn't heard his mom drive up, but he can hear Mrs. Baker next door trimming her hedges. The wind coming through his bedroom door is colder than the air from his window, and his neck is starting to hurt from the angle of the pillows.

"I haven’t even kissed anybody," Stiles says. "Not even a guy."

It's the way Stiles says "guy," quieter than he usually is, that makes Scott open his eyes and sit up. Stiles is standing at the foot of the bed, his thighs pressed against the edge of the mattress. If Scott got on his knees now, they'd almost be touching.

"Do you want to kiss a guy?" Scott asks, because Stiles wants him to ask.

Stiles looks down at the cuff of his flannel shirt, starts pulling at the unraveling string at the center of the button. His eyelashes are long, Scott notices, and they curl up, like Scott's do.

Stiles shrugs. Scott takes a deep breath with him, tries to catch his eyes, but Stiles won't look up.

So, Scott says, "I wouldn't mind kissing a guy."

Stiles glances at him. "Yeah?" he asks, his hazel eyes wide, but hopeful.

"Yeah," Scott says, his smile reassuring, even if he's confused as to why Stiles would be so nervous.

And now, the thought is in front of them, but neither of them move. Scott watches the way Stiles licks his lips, the way his fingers pull at the loose thread on his shirt. If he weren't leaning against the bed, he'd be shifting from foot to foot.

Scott gets on his knees, slow so that Stiles can see what he's doing. His heart beats an even rhythm, as though it understands, even though Scott doesn't, that this isn't something he should be afraid of.

Scott scoots forward on the bed, watching Stiles, the way he tilts his head to the right a bit, the way his eyes narrow as he really looks at Scott. Stiles's face is warm when Scott puts his hands on it, thumb just barely touching the top of Stiles's cheekbones. Scott glances at Stiles's mouth once, gets caught in the curve of Stiles's lips.

Scott's never noticed how Stiles bites his lips when he's nervous. He hasn't noticed the flecks of gold in Stiles's eyes either, the slope of his eyelashes, or the heat when he exhales. Stiles has a decoration of moles on his face, one right by Scott's left pinky, another on the center of his cheek. The only sound Scott can focus on is the slow exhales from Stiles, punctuated suddenly by harsh short bursts.

Scott is looking Stiles right in the eyes when they do kiss, just a firm press of dry lips to chapped one. Scott's barely touched him when Stiles presses forward, and everything in Scott burns, coils tight towards where Stiles is kissing him. The world crashes into the space between them and disappears in exchange for the feeling of Stiles's lips, his hands on the back of Scott's neck.

He exhales and Stiles moves away. Scott's chest opens up with the distance, until everything is rushing in around him. The blend of brown and gold in Stiles's eyes, and the sheets against Scott's knees. Mrs. Baker's trimmers, and his mom's car pulling up into the driveway. The rustling of leaves outside, and the slam of the front door. Stiles's face warm but not familiar in Scott's palms. They look at each, even though Scott feels as though he can't focus. Stiles's hands are warm. 

Scott inhales.

  


* * *

  


"High school is scary," Melissa said, when Scott woke up the morning of his first day of high school. "It's normal that you'd be scared your first year. And your second year. And third year is PSATs and SATs. Senior year is college essays which are frightening enough without prom."

Scott sat on his bed, mouth open, his favorite red hoodie pulled over his white t-shirt.

"I'm just kidding," Melissa said. "You'll be fine. You have Stiles."

Scott raised an eyebrow at her and Melissa laughed, loud and free, the way Scott was just getting used to again.

"Okay, okay, I see your point," she said, running a hand through Scott's hair. "Tell you what? If you make it through your first day, I'll let you order dinner."

"You mean like we do every Tuesday?" Scott asked, getting up and looking for his backpack.

"Yes," Melissa said. "But this time _you_ get to pick where we eat."

Scott grinned and let her kiss the top of his head. He heard her soft, " _que dios te bendiga_ ," the last bit of Catholicism she held onto, passed to him. He even crossed his arms over his chest and let her bless him, the way Grandmother Delgado used to whenever he went to visit. She kissed his forehead and walked him to the door, and there was Stiles in a blue hoodie, sitting on the bottom porch step, backpack over both shoulders.

"Ready?" he asked.

Scott inhaled and nodded. "Yeah," he said. "Always."

*

The plan was going to work, but Scott watched as it all fell apart around him, the betrayal on Derek's face when Gerard forced the bite his body rejected. Gerard, Allison's grandfather, was dead or dying. Jackson had died and come back, and Lydia was holding him in her arms. They were crying, tears streaming down both their faces, their hands wrapped around each other.

The lights in the warehouse illuminated the bruises on Stiles's cheek, fingerprints from Gerard. Jackson would always remember the people he killed, and Stiles would always remember who gave him the bruises on his face. Derek would always know that Scott didn't trust him enough to tell him the truth.

"What did you do?" Derek asked.

Scott stood in the center of it all, Allison crying silently behind him. Lydia and Jackson in their own world. Stiles's gaze searing a hole in Scott's back.

They had to go find Gerard.

"I'm sorry," Scott said. "I didn’t know what to do. I wasn't ready for this."

Derek glared up at him from where he was kneeling on the floor. "That's probably the first time you've told the truth," he said.

But his voice was a reassuring thing, something that settled Scott down, and allowed him to breathe. He looked at Derek, and they nodded at each other, both acknowledging the weight the other carried. The weight Derek was starting to lose as more and more of his pack left him to join Scott.

 _I don’t know how to protect them,_ Scott wanted to say.

He didn’t say it aloud, but he could tell from the sadness on Derek's face that he didn’t have to. Responsibility neither of them asked for was something they had in common.

"You'll do better than me," Derek said, sometime later, before he too, walked away.

Scott had held Allison's body in his arms, had seen Stiles fall to pieces as the nogitsune took over. Lydia was a banshee. Jackson was gone. Erica was dead. Derek had killed Boyd. Malia needed help with everything, and Scott had turned an innocent boy into a werewolf. His grades were up, but it took time to keep them that way, and he had a job with Deaton. There were tests he had to take if he wanted scholarships for college, courses to plan for the end of senior year. He hadn't written his college admissions essay yet, but his mom was already talking about him leaving Beacon Hills.

"How do you know?" Scott asked, desperate.

"Because they trust you," Derek said. "And because everything about you is fighting for what's right. Because my mom would have been proud of you."

"Don't leave," Scott said.

Derek squeezed his shoulder, brought their foreheads together. In the space between them, he took Scott's hand.

"There's nothing left for me here."

Scott had held on tight, his knuckles white from the force. His heart was beating rapidly in his chest, the knot at his throat not letting him breathe. He could feel the heat from the flare he once held in his hand again, warmth so welcoming Scott wanted to hold it forever.

"You'll do fine," Derek said, one last time.

Then, he stood, and Scott watched him walk away. Anger replaced the ache in his chest, something wild that took him by surprise. He would have punched Derek, if he'd so much as looked back.

 _I want to go_.

The thought filled the empty spaces of his chest, aches he thought were gone coming back each time he thought the words.

"I want to go," he whispered.

But there was no one around to hear him.

-

Voices fill the places where Scott has stuck pieces of his friends. He hears, "Erica is dead," where he used to hear her laughter, bright and confident, the curl of her lips challenging. It goes on, each repetition taking away a little bit more, until all Scott's left with is Erica's body, limp in Derek's arms, her hair matted with blood.

"Derek is done with you," replaces the kindness and understanding in Derek's eyes, when he called Scott brother. Sound fills up the place in Scott's mind where he keeps the memory of the smiles Derek gave him, precious because they are so few.

"You can see the way Allison is looking at Isaac," grows louder the more he tries to push it away. He hears Allison's laughter, and sees the brightness in her eyes when she looks at him, but this time, it's Isaac she's watching. Isaac gets to hold her hand and kiss her cheek. Isaac gets to feel the way the world quiets when Allison is near.

But Scott could survive that. He can, because he lived without them before. He only ever needed Stiles and his mom, and Sheriff Stilinski on weekends. But as soon as he thinks about them, he hears their screams, short and cut off. 

He hears, "You're not good enough," in Stiles's voice. 

Mockery would be kinder than the surety in Stiles's voice, confidence born from years of knowing Scott. If anyone knows how likely Scott is to fail, it's Stiles.

"You're seventeen," Stiles's voice says, gentle and close to Scott's ear. "You don't know what you're doing. You've never known what you were doing."

Scott sits up in his motel bed, the one next to him empty. Stiles went out for ice, some time ago. There's no one in the room to distract him from the voices. He sits on the bed, the dull orange sheets wrinkling as he gets comfortable.

"What makes you think you can keep them safe?" Stiles's voice asks.

Scott stands and goes to the desk across from his bed. He pulls it open, takes out the Bible, and flips to a random page.

"Your grandmother was a fan of the Bible, wasn't she?" Stiles says. "She liked to pretend she could pray the pain away."

Scott runs his fingers along the edges of the black book, fingers catching on the uneven cut of the pages. Grandmother Delgado was always _abuelita_ , the Spanish a low whine, especially on Sundays when she took Scott to church.

"She said God was waiting for her, the day she died," Scott tells the empty room. "She said it didn't hurt when she was with Him."

"Nothing hurts when you're dead, Scott," Stiles says, his voice a low murmur, his tone mirroring the pain in Scott's chest.

"It's too much," Scott says.

He runs his fingers faster on the edges of the Bible, one of the pages catching his finger at the wrong angle and slicing his skin. If he concentrates on the pain, the voices go quiet. But he pauses, because Grandma Delgado said God would never want Scott to hurt himself.

"Matthew eleven, verse twenty-eight," Stiles whispers. "'Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.'"

The voices in his head die down to a single comforting hum, as Scott walks out to the parking lot.

"Do it for them," the voice whispers in his ear. "Do it so that they don't die because of you."

Scott goes to the bus, gets his hand around a flare and the extra tank of gasoline underneath the driver's seat.

"It will go away soon," the voice in his head says. "I promise."

He pours the gasoline canister over his head, lets it fall to the floor. Scott hears " _yo te daré el descanso eterno_ ," in his grandmother's familiar Spanish. He feels the heat of the flare, comforting in its warmth. He doesn't get to close his eyes before Stiles comes running to him, Lydia and Allison behind him.

"Scott," Stiles says, panicked and so scared.

"You did that," the voice says to Scott. "You hurt him and you'll keep hurting him. You'll hurt all of them."

"I'm sorry," Scott says.

He means for Erica, so much for Erica, because she had her whole life ahead of her, because she was finally free, because maybe, if Scott had talked to her, she would have stayed. He's sorry for Jackson, and for Danny getting hurt without knowing why. He's sorry for the Cs he gets, and for the number of times Melissa has to sign a copy of his test. For the alpha pack and the Darach. For not being able to kill Peter, and making Lydia live with that, for letting Allison live with that. He's sorry for the bruises on Stiles's face from Gerard's fist, for the way he kissed Stiles when they were thirteen and fourteen, for how, sometimes, he still wants to.

If only his problems were as small as that, Scott thinks. How easy it was before Peter, before Allison and Lydia. Before lacrosse and Derek.

"Scott," Stiles says.

Scott looks at him. Stiles glows red in the light from the flare, his eyes too wide, and his mouth open as he tries to breathe.

"Do you remember how it was before?" Scott asks.

"Yeah," Stiles says.

"I want to be no one again, Stiles."

"Scott, just listen to me," Stiles says. "You're my best friend, okay, and I need you. Scott, you're my brother."

How could Scott have thought the voice in his motel room was Stiles? It was never this scared. Never this sure.

"If we're going do this," Stiles says, stepping forward until Scott has to look at him and only him. His hand is ice cold when he wraps it around Scott's hands, but his body is just as warming and welcoming as the heat from the flare.

"If we're doing this, then you're going to have to take me with you," Stiles says.

And just like that, Scott lets go. Because he could hurt himself, yes. But he would _never_ hurt anybody else, especially not Stiles.

  


* * *

  


Allison died and the air seemed so much thicker in Scott's lungs as he held her. She was still warm in his arms, her pretty brown hair falling away from her face, and if not for the blood between Scott's fingers, Allison could be sleeping. But she was dead, and Scott held her in his arms, his tongue ashen in his mouth, choking him. There was a scream building in his throat, but the pain in the center of Scott's chest wouldn't let it out.

He tried to breathe, but Allison was so still in his arms. He couldn't look at her, though he wanted nothing more than to memorize her face, to hear her say that she loved him. She was dead, and Scott would say his world was ending, but he couldn't.

If his world were ending, he could expect peace at the end. But Stiles could be dying too, and Lydia heard screams in her head. Sheriff Stilinski wanted to know about supernatural creatures, and Melissa wanted Scott safe. Scott needed to protect the friends he had left, needed to think about something else besides, "this one is your fault too."

He stood, even though he didn't want to, and let Christopher Argent take his daughter. Scott looked at Kira, nodded at her to follow, because they had to find Lydia. He inhaled with each left step and exhaled with each right, filling the gaps in his chest with Stiles, and Melissa, and Lydia, and now, Malia. He had people to protect. What he might have felt at that moment didn't matter, not before the rest of them, not before Stiles's safety. Not before anyone else.

So, he'd made it, pushed forward even when all he wanted was to fall on the floor and never get up. He'd pushed back the ash in his mouth, until all that was left was a chilling emptiness that left no room for tears. Scott had gotten Stiles back. He had Kira, and Lydia, and Derek, and Melissa, Sheriff Stilinski, Danny, and Malia. He repeated their names like a mantra to help him sleep. He'd lost Allison, but he still had the rest. He'd lost Erica and Boyd, but there was still Sheriff Stilinski. Isaac and Chris were gone, but Scott's mom was alive.

She was okay and he wasn't alone.

Not yet.

*

"You killed Donovan?" Scott asked, so quiet he hoped Stiles wouldn't hear it.

Stiles stood before him, wearing the purple shirt Scott had given him as a joke for his last birthday. The rain was cold where it hit Scott, and his breath was coming out too fast. He hadn't needed his inhaler in over a year, but he'd taken to carrying it around again.

He knew what it was, knew that the constant stream of _school, college, betas, murders, alpha, work_ , wasn't healthy. Scott looked in the bathroom mirror in the morning and didn't recognize himself. It figured that there would come a day when he would look at Stiles and not recognize him either.

"Some of us make mistakes, Scott," Stiles yelled. "Some of us are _human_.

It was the word "human" that did it. It would have been amusing, if Scott hadn't felt so betrayed, how one word made his entire world collapse. It all crumbled within him, every piece of himself that he'd held together for _them_. For his mother, and for the pack, for Beacon Hills, for the kids in his classroom who didn't know what was going on. He'd tied all the pieces of himself that had been chipping off with Stiles, had let Stiles fill in the empty spaces of his chest, so that someone could help Scott hold himself up.

He'd never wanted it to be his mother, because she had enough already. She fed him and took care of him. She worried that he took on too much, that he was stressed and lonely, that being alpha was too much for just one kid. Scott had tried to show her that she was wrong, that he could do it. That as long as other people needed him, he would be able to keep going.

But Stiles didn't think Scott was human, even though that's all Scott had ever been, just a boy with too much on his back. He was a boy, not even eighteen yet, and with the world on his shoulders. He knew too much. He'd seen too much. He wanted out. He needed an out.

"Don't," Scott managed to say.

The word felt like sandpaper against his throat, but he said it, just the single syllable in the pattering of the rain.

"Please," he said. "Not you."

That was as far as he got, before the lump at his throat pushed the tears over the brim of his eyes. He wanted to scream, to be able to tear at his hair, and hit things. But he wasn't that person. He was Scott McCall, straight As and Bs, future veterinarian, protector of Beacon Hills, best friend, leader of his pack, but never just Scott. Never the kid who yelled and fought, who screamed because it was unfair that this was his life. Unfair that he'd been the one in the woods. Unfair that Derek left when Scott needed him. That Allison was gone. That Isaac was gone. That he'd hurt an innocent boy because he saw no other way.

Scott sank to his knees and wept, silent tears rolling down his cheeks. He inhaled, let the air get stuck in his chest, as he tried to hold back his sobs. He felt small, scattered every which way, and he had no idea how to piece himself back together. But he had to. He had to because Stiles was scared and Scott had to make it better somehow. There were more important things than Scott crying on the school parking lot.

That thought just brought bitter tears, hotter than the first. Scott felt them like scalding water down his cheeks, anger burning him from the center of his chest outward. He was unimportant, at seventeen. He was last, even though he'd tried his best, even though he had ripped himself to pieces just to keep everyone else whole.

"But you'd never kill anyone," said a voice in his head. "So Stiles had to. Because you wouldn't."

"I'm sorry," Scott whispered.

He focused on a spot above Stiles's shoulder, wanted to calm down. But Stiles took three steps forward, his shoes splashing in the small puddles between them. He knelt down in front of Scott, pulled him in, wrapped his arms tight around Scott, hard enough that Scott could almost feel the pieces in his chest slotting together.

"You're okay," Stiles whispered, pressing kisses into Scott's hair. "It's okay. We're okay. You're okay."

Scott didn't know how long it was before the tears stopped. But Stiles kept kissing him until they did, soft presses of his lips against Scott's forehead, his cheeks, the very corner of his mouth, on his head, hard and insistent, as though he could make it all right, if he just held on tight enough.

"I'm sorry," Stiles was saying. He repeated it with each kiss to Scott's face, whispered it in Scott's ear.

Neither of them needed to hear Scott accept that apology, so Scott just kissed him, finally. And the world didn't go away. It exploded in bright colors and pain so intense, Scott wanted to start crying again. But everything went quiet too, the world narrowed down to just them, the feel of Stiles's hair under Scott's fingers, and the press of Stiles's lips to his. Until all the sounds and the pain lowered in volume, the space between them a shield.

When Stiles pulled away, the world rushed in, but it had narrowed too, to the throbbing in Scott's head, and the burn in his throat.

"We'll be okay," Stiles said, linking their fingers.

"Yeah," Scott said, even though things weren't fine yet.

But they would be. Someday.

  


* * *

  


"I want to go," Scott tells his mother.

He's sitting at their kitchen table, a vase of lilies in the middle, the way Grandmother Delgado always had them.

"I'm going to go," he says.

Melissa looks up from her crossword, their plates pushed to the side. It's been six months since the last supernatural problem in Beacon Hills and Scott doesn't have nightmares so often anymore. He takes _Zoloft_ every night before bed, and the air isn't ask thick as it used to be the beginning of senior year.

"Good," Melissa says. "Just drive safely. By which, of course, I mean, don't let Stiles drive."

Scott smiles at her, and it pulls a little less each time he does it. He knows it will never be the same smile from sophomore year, or the one from junior year. Not like the one he used to save for Allison, but it's a smile, and for a while, Scott thought he'd forgotten how to.

"Visit on the weekends," Melissa says, finally.

Her own smile is a little sadder too, but she's proud of him. Of that, Scott will always be sure.

"I will," he says.

"Love you," she says, loud and clear, because it isn’t a secret.

"Love you too," Scott says.

They finish the crossword together.

-

The last week of August, Scott and Stiles get into Stiles's new jeep.

Malia is staying with Kira in Beacon Hills so they come to see Scott and Stiles off. Lydia is already in New York. But Liam and Mason make it too, both with new longer haircuts, and matching grins. The four of them sit on Scott's porch, legs overlapping as they laugh together. Scott inhales, one long breath, contentment filling his chest. It doesn't go away, stays there, a buzz under his skin.

Malia waves the hardest when Stiles closes the trunk of the jeep. Kira and Mason blow them kisses, and Liam grins so hard it looks like it hurts.

"Don't come back," Liam yells over the roar of the engine.

"Bring presents," Malia says.

Stiles rolls his eyes at the four of them still sprawled out across Scott's porch. "Miss us, you assholes," he says.

Scott grins at them all, waves just as hard as Malia. Then, Stiles starts the car, and they drive away, hands clutched together between them. Neither of them looks back.

 

Scott exhales.

**Author's Note:**

> I tagged this motel california, which means that all the triggery things in that episode are also mentioned in this fic. Things like Scott's suicidal thoughts and the attempted suicide. Scott's depression isn't really explicitly stated, not in so many words, but this whole fic is about Scott losing it, so just be aware of that. Of course, there's the canonical character deaths, and a bit about how Scott felt about Allison dying. 
> 
> There's some religion, but nothing too in depth. I think that's all, but I will reread this to make sure. I promise.
> 
> EDIT: HAVE YOU GUYS HAD A LOOK AT [THIS WONDERFUL PHOTOSET](http://queerlyalex.tumblr.com/post/127161049587/a-little-bit-sadder-a-little-bit-freer-by)??? Because if not, then go look at it RIGHT NOW and leave amazing messages or reblog and have at it in the tags or just like, print it and frame it on your walls etc etc.


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